Today’s Christmas school was a little more Christmas-y, although we had no Christmas craft–that will have to wait until tomorrow. We started by reading The Three Wise Women of Christmas. In one storybook are three very short stories; one about Elizabeth, one about Mary, and one about Anna. It’s not terribly substantial, but gives some basic information about each of the women (the section about Anna is probably the most unknown to children), and shows how God was faithful to each of them.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s discussion of the church year, we read through Behold the Lamb, which is a companion to Ordering Our Days in His Peace. Behold the Lamb focuses on the symbols we see in church. The books begins with the different symbols for the Trinity, and then breaks them down further into symbols representing each of the Persons of the Trinity. There are also symbols for Word and Sacrament, as well as evangelists and apostles, but the biggest portion of the book is symbols for the various seasons of the church year. We especially focused on the symbols related to the Time of Christmas–nothing really new there, but we very much enjoyed the artwork.

There were two parts of the book that were especially fascinating to Turkey and Bunny. The first was the two page layout on different styles of crosses. There were several that they had never seen before–they were especially intrigued by the anchor cross. They were also interested in the symbols from two legends that have come to represent Christ. The first, the Phoenix, was new to them, but *I* had heard of that one before. The second, the Pelican-in-her-piety, was also new to me, and I thought that story was particularly fascinating. Although the story of a mother bird feeding her babies with her own life’s blood so they might survive is not true, it certainly is a great representation of Christ’s love for us.

I love days when even I learn something new!